ds flashed through her mind: "He wants saving from himself. Pity! A
great talent!" It WAS a great talent. There must be something worth
saving in one who could play like that! They left after his last solo.
Gyp put the two roses carefully back among the others.

Three days later, she went to an afternoon "at home" at the Baroness von
Maisen's. She saw him at once, over by the piano, with his short, square
companion, listening to a voluble lady, and looking very bored and
restless. All that overcast afternoon, still and with queer lights in
the sky, as if rain were coming, Gyp had been feeling out of mood, a
little homesick. Now she felt excited. She saw the short companion
detach himself and go up to the baroness; a minute later, he was brought
up to her and introduced--Count Rosek. Gyp did not like his face; there
were dark rings under the eyes, and he was too perfectly self-possessed,
with a kind of cold sweetness; but he was very agreeable and polite, and
spoke English well. He was--it seemed--a Pole, who lived in London, and
seemed to know all that was to be known about music. Miss Winton--he
believed--had heard his friend Fiorsen play; but not in London? No?
That was odd; he had been there some months last season. Faintly annoyed
at her ignorance, Gyp answered:

"Yes; but I was in the country nearly all last summer."

"He had a great success. I shall take him back; it is best for his
future. What do you think of his playing?"

In spite of herself, for she did not like expanding to this sphinxlike
little man, Gyp murmured:

"Oh, simply wonderful, of course!"

He nodded, and then rather suddenly said, with a peculiar little smile:

"May I introduce him? Gustav--Miss Winton!"

Gyp turned. There he was, just behind her, bowing; and his eyes had a
look of humble adoration which he made no attempt whatever to conceal.
Gyp saw another smile slide over the Pole's lips; and she was alone in
the bay window with Fiorsen. The moment might well have fluttered a
girl's nerves after his recognition of her by the Schiller statue, after
that episode of the flowers, and what she had heard of him. But life had
not yet touched either her nerves or spirit; she only felt amused and a
little excited. Close to, he had not so much that look of an animal
behind bars, and he certainly was in his way a dandy, beautifully
washed--always an important thing--and having some pleasant essence on
his handkerchief or hair